#but like only at the very end

[betweenblackberrybranches]

Castle in the sky AU

Chapter 1: Under the Sun

@succulent-momma because you wanted to be tagged

The clouds beneath you moved fast when you looked out of the small window, your left hand pressed against the slightly vibrating glass. Just as you thought you might catch a glimps of green between the white masses a big hand grabbed your shoulder and ripped you back upright into your seat. "Dont dream, The steering in the back s  makin trouble again!" Grimacing you ducked under the bawly mans arm to crawl into the dusty backside of the crammed flying engine. The back was your least favourite place in this ship especally when in the air. the windpressure wipped it around quite agressively in these hights and after you had reattached the outer walls two times, the last few months, because they had fallen off mid flight, you did not trust it to hold your weight. But the steering was luckily a quick fix most of the time. Nothing that a medium sized slap and a bit of grease couldnt do. "Hand in joint!!" you yelled out to let the two others know not to move the steering while you work. Carefully moving not to put too much weight on the outer casing or to touch one of the boiling hot tubes you dabed the grease on the joint with the back of your thick leather glove and hoped that Drill in the cockpit would be mindfull of your fingers. The drumming humm of the engin was almost bearable back here but there is nothing that would make you truely consider staying in this part of the craft.

Though it is really the only reason Drill and Rusty had taken you with them on this flight in the first place. You were small and agile enough to reach even the smaller spaces, making you important for a long distance flight like this, being able to quickly fix these things in the air instead of landing. This is the first time you had been asked to acompany them on an actual gig. For years you had worked yourself up from running small errants, still as a snot nosed child, to Rusty taking you on as one of his apprenticess, to one of the better mechanics of the little workshop. There surely were better ones but there deffinetly were worse ones. Well but lucky for you Rod had to stay home this time to watch over his wife after she had given birth so they had asked you to come with them. Yea, you had been on test flights before but it just was not the same. They never flew this high when you were with them before...

Slowly you crawled backwards accidently hitting Rustys back with your feet when trying to wiggle out of the small space.

"Hey brat s the steering fine again?" Rustys broad hands closed down around your ancles and dragged you out all the way out of the hole, that you had used as your entrance to the tailend. Now looking back you were surprised that you had even fit in there and that you hadnt cut yourself open on the sharp metal edges when Rusty had pulled you out. His big hands immidiatly janked you back to your seat and rested on your shulders as he stood up to poke his head into the cockpit above.

"Try it out... yea? ... yea okay!"

You hadn't been able to hear the other side of the conversation but by the little squint around Rustys eyes when he sat back down you figued everything worked fine again.

"Good work, kiddo."

You chuckled as you fully settled down again. To those two you would probably allways be the little snotty kid that you were when you first met. But it didnt bother you at all.

You looked up after a while. Rusty had his eyes on the various meters of the mashine, displaying heat of the engine, how full the tank was, oil and many other things he had tried to teach you numerous times but that just dont seem to want to stay in your head. Well he was eyeing them, his actual attention was on the newspapers he had in his hands. You would have to ask him if you could have a look at them later but for now you craned you neck slightly trying to get a look of the guy next to Drill in the cockpit. The guy who charterd the plane, asking for the strongest engine to fly extremely high and long flights with. Usually this plane was used for delivering important packages. Atleast that was what the guys called it, you were never naive enough to belive that, there were too many shady deals and secret night flights. But you werent one to snoop because this was your second family in some way and they payed extremely well. This guy didnt seem to be transporting any "important packages" though. It seemed more like he was seaching for something giving Drill coordinates now and then and commenting on some landmarks. You didnt hear most of it but the little bits that had found their way to your ears had peaked your curiosity. Without thinking you had gotten up off your seat slightly to peek through into the cockpit. The man was sleek looking, suit and all, the type that you might see smoking a cigar. He looked wildly out of place next to the gruff giant on the pilot seat. His hands fiddeling with something out of sight to you and his brows knitted together in concentration. With his graying slicked back hair and wild stubbly mustache he looked around the age of Drill and Rusty but he had a sleaziness around him that you could not quite pinpoint.

Rusty yanked you down by the back of your shirt and you scrunched your face thinking of how that surely left oily stains that would stick to your neck later.

"Head down" Rusty grunted as he pressed you on your seat again. After a small pause he gently shoved you towards that small bullhole you had practicly been fused to for the last few hours. And your eyes almost grew to be the size of dinnerplates as you gawked out at the mountains peaking out of the thick clouds. You never had seen mountains like this before.

You almost didnt notice the amused snort from behind you as you gripped the sides of the window with both of your hands, pressing your nose against the glass.

"Whoa shit this really is it huh" you breathed out as your eyes followed the outlines of the massive stone formations deep below. A small chuckle escaped Rusty before he went back to studying the thin letters of the newspapers.

You werent sure if it had been another hour or more when Drill spoke up, loud enough for even the both of you down under to hear.

"Thats MADNESS  We will NOT risk our life for a so called HUNCH of yours!"

You looked up, at Rusty who looked back at you with a simmilar expression of concern. Just as you wanted to stand up Rusty already climed over you into the cockpit starting to discuss something you couldnt quite understand with the two men upstairs. A heated argument seemed to break out between the suited man and the brothers as you wiggled out between Rustys legs. The aircaft bopped as it entered into a strong aircurrent and stumbeling forwards, having freed yourself from Rustys legs you hit your head slightly on the tubing leading the coolant to the engin. Luckily those were the ones that were not boiling hot or this would have not just ended in you yelping and holding your head where you now had a tender spot. But now cowering on the ground, looking up you saw what you figued that argument over you was about. Looking through the small window directly up you saw gigantic dark clouds, now and then lighting up with lightning. The kind that, if seen on the horizon, would make the sheep herders at home franticly call for their animals to come to shelter. The kind that, if you saw them while planning a test flight you would just, not fly. But with the course you were going you would have to pass throu it unless Drill would somehow manage to steer sharply to the side or dip above it. As the argument over your head intesified you could not tear your eyes from the ever moving cloud mass as the hair on your body started to stand up to an almost painfull degree. Every second that Drill was not evading this, the chance to get away dwindled more. Somewhere from the back of your brain the fact that you were sitting in the middle of the sky, only a thin metal box protecting you from the forces of nature, from that big storm up ahead, emergend and scared you shitless. You knew that this ship was sturdy enough, hell you yourself had been the one to help Rusty and Drill check it through just this morning, but a dread you had never felt before filled your bones as the first outstretched arm of the cloud wall reached the ship and parted around it. Fabric shifted above you as Rusty climbed back down into the lower part of the ship. He clenched his jaw and then stopped as he peered at you laying on the ground.

"Get up and give me a hand up here kiddo"

You scrambled to your feet, still having to crouch in the crammed space and helped him open one of the storage spaces. He leaned in, shoving a few supplies to the side and for a moment you were sure you had seen the glimmer of a big gun of some sort. Instinctively you patted the back of your pants for the outline of your knife but you quickly took your hand back before he pressed four big packets of fabric and iron buckles into your hands.

"You know what to do right? Bring two to the guys up there, leave one for me"

You stared at him in disbelieve.

"Are we really gonna go in there?!?! Thats arcenine!?" You all but hissed and by the way his jaw flexed you knew he thought so too.

Quickly climbing up into the cockpit you threw one of the chutes to the customer and helped Drill into his, so that he didnt have to take his hands off the contolls. Now looking through the much bigger window up here, your heart sank into your stomache. That wall of clouds was way closer than you liked it to be and the different air currents around it seemed to almost fight for controll. The clouds around the ship got sucked up into the slowly spinning vortex at an alarming speed. Your hands started shaking as you failed again and again to fasten the last buckle around Drills chest until one of his caloused hands shoved itself before your eyes.

"S' fine dont worry twerp"

Your fingers finally stilled enough to get the chute all set up and your hands found Drills shoulders for a moment, giving them a small squeeze before hastily climbing back down to put on your own chute. Down there Rusty already waited for you, helping you put the gastly thing onto your shoulders. This would be your only lifeline if things went south and you dreaded nothing more than having to use it.

You clawed at the seat when the air current finally took a hold of the craft, making the engin roar and the matal outer casing groan under the sudde  pressure change. Rustys newspaper had been hastily thrown to the ground as he now stared at the displays with furrowed brows. The ship rattled as it pressed forwards into the dark clouds and a small lightning danced over the window, lighting the insides uncomfortably for a few seconds before letting it sink back into a comfotable darkness. You pressed your eyes shut digging your nails further into the old leather of the seat. The roaring thunder let you flinch and the pressure settled in your ears making your head feel a swimming sensation.

Suddenly it was all gone. Natural sunlight momentarly lighted up the lower part of the ship.

"Left! THERE!! ITS THERE!!"

The man in the cockpit yelled allmost extasic and you looked up just to blink at what you saw.

There were trees, and some sort of deffinetly man made structure. But this couldnt be, you were higher than the highest mountains would reach.. this was impossible.

"THE CITY IN THE SKY!!!"

That man was surely crazy, but so were you aparently because you deffinetly saw something out there.

As fast as you had caught a glimpse of it it had already hid behind the clouds though and the pressure on your ears had returned, now turning into a throbbing headache. But the man in the cockpit above started yelling at Drill to turn back to bring him there. You didnt hear what Drill said, it was lost in the groaning of the ship as another current grabbed it and pushed its right side up agressively, making you slam into the outer wall next to you.

You tried to regain your bearings holding your head as you scrunched up your face. Why had Drill not steered against this current? He was a brillant pilot why did he not see this coming?

Until you realized and looked up in horror seing Rusty looking back at you with a face that said it all. "Steerings jammed again." You stammered with a finality to it, it was not a question.

"Twerp! The steering or we are all good as dead!!" Drill yelled fighting against being drowned out by the engin. There was something unspoken in it. Stay safe.

Rusty squeezed your arm tightly before you crawled back into the shaking tail end of the plane. Thanking whatever higher power that you were small enough to fit even with the chute strapped to you, eventhough the metal buckles dug painfully into your chest and sides. Your breath hitched with every inch, with every testing shift of weight and as you reached the steering and yelled the usual "Hand in joint!" you even feared that the yelling itself might dislodge the part of the outer casing you were holding onto at that point. To your horror you discovered that a medium slap did not do the trick this time as the joint just wouldnt move. "Fuck!" You punched the joint with as much force as you could muster up but it did not budge

"Fuck! No Fuck this!" You yelled as you looked around franticly to think of something. But the panic had already set in. You peered back at Rusty, out of reach, who stayed at the entrance of the tail end holding the sharp edges so tightly you worried he might cut himslef. You had only once seen the man with a look like that on his face. Glazed over like when an engin had disconected from a craft while going on repairs and had crushed Pipes leg. What you saw right there on his face was pure fear, and you wished you had not looked back. All you could do to make your heart calm down was close your eyes.

So you did. And when you opened them again you had a plan. It was a bad one but better than nothing. With shaky hands you smeared as much of the grease as you could onto the joint hoping the next part would do the trick. You turned onto your back, which was a feat in itself in this small space. You looked back at Rusty for a last time giving him a lopsided grin. Then you kicked the steering with all you had.

Once.

"Kiddo! Stop!!"

Twice.

"You gonna fall!!"

You felt bad, hearing his pleading tone but Drill was right. If you didnt get the steering to work you were all dead.

So you would up for one more kick. And to your surprise the steering moved! The grease spreading and making it go smooth. You looked back again seeing Rustys face light up shakily, stretching his arms out towards you as much as he could so he could pull you out swiftly. You ginned and moved to turn onto your stomache again so you could crawl the little distance you had to go to meet him.

But as you moved your knee the casing beneathe you gave way halfway, only being held up by one side. Your breath hitched and your eyes flicked towards Rustys. You saw the panic in his eyes as he took a breath to tell you something. You didnt hear what because as he brought out the first sound the other side of the casing gave way and your whole being focused on holding on for dear life, cutting open your hands on exposed, broken bolts. And as another shudder went through the engine and Rusty yelled your name you lost grip and plummited, your chute getting stuck and ripped slightly as it opened prematurely almost decapitating you. An air current immidiatly took hold of the it ripping you up and wirling you around until you fully lost sight of the small red aircraft. You had no idea what was up or down as your limbs got tangled in the lines of the chute and all you could think was that this surely was worse than just falling to your death. One of the line suddenly wipped around hitting you in the face hard enough to make you see stars and white splotches started to creep their way into your vision until you fainted.

The first thing you noticed was a red, warm glow behind your eyelids. Then the pain set in and your eyes flew open on instinct looking around to asses the situation. To your surprise you were alife. To the point that every little movement made it clear how very painfully alife you were. First you only saw clouds below or above you, you werent sure and the strings of the chute in which you were pretty badly tangled. Looking up, you guessed, you saw that the chute had settled in the branches of a tree. Looking down you saw.. nothing.

You went slightly rigit at that realization. But after a moment of nothing happening but the tree slowly swaying in the wind you started trying to untagle yourself, swinging slightly towards the tree to hopefully get a grip on one of the lower hanging branches. Grabbing blindly at a thick branch you winced, a throbbing pain washing over your hands. But you did not let go instead you hoisted one of your legs over the branch to get your hands free. As you looked at them you realized how deep the slashes really were. These should probably be sewn up. But first you had to eskape the plummet to your death. Slowly you managed to curl one of your legs around the trunk of the tree dragging youself closer until you could hold onto it with both your legs and arms. Your whole body screamed, the chutes lines digging into your skin but your mind finally settled down now that you could securely hold onto something. Carfully reaching back you beamed as you realized your knife was somehow still secure in your pants and you used it to cut yourself loose, not able to untangle yourslef any further on your own. Slowly sliding down the smooth bark until your feet touched the grounds right next to the cliff into the nothingness. Stumbling back you tried to bring as much room between you and the crumbling ridge as possible, scrambling on the dusty ground.

For a while you just laid there. Your chest heeving as you grabbed the ground tightly with one and your knife with the other trying to ground yourself, closing your eyes. After some time you started to actually hear the world around you, that had been so eeryily quiet while you had fought for your life high on adrenalin. The wind rustled the leaves of thesurounding trees gently, insects sirred around and even the beconing calles of some birds echoed through the air. And faintly, far away you could hear the croaking of frogs.

Water!

Sitting up you stared at the caked dirt in and around the wounds on your hands, little stones nestleing in between the sand. Ouch.

You decided that you could probably leave the chute unatended for a while to clean your hands and get rid of that terribly burning feeling in your throat. You didnt even care if the water was dirty, eventhough you knew you should.

Walking on wobbly legs, knife still in your hand, you followed the sounds of croaking, steping through thick bushes and on a carpet of dead leaves and needsles from surrounding trees.

A slow dripping steered you sharply to the right as you stepped through some reed and suddenly found yourself on a moss riddled white cobblestone platform. Flat stepps lead into a shallow basain of water under a mostly broken down arch, most likely once part of an aqueduct but now laying in ruin.

Your jaw slacked at seing this but before your thoughts could fully catch up to you, you already found yourself kneeling down at the stepps leading down to the clear water and washing your hands. Then you dipped your whole head into it trying to cool off your head. Under the seering sun it had actually become quite warm and you head felt like it was filled with the stuff you had to scrape off an engine after it overheats, gooey mainly.

Your face burned in the cold water making you realize that the line hitting you in the head probably did more damage than you had thought. You knew you should be getting up to figue out if there was anyone you could ask for help around, if you were lucky Drill had landed the plane somewhere around here and the others were looking for you. You scoffed, yea as if. Your chance of surviving that fall and the chute malfunction were so low he would never put all their lives in even more danger by turning around. You knew him well enough to know that and respected him for it. It was a miracle you were still alife afterall.

Laying on your back in tha half shade of a tree bowing over the basain, the wet backside of your hands laying on your burning face you tried to come to terms with your situation. This was definetly the place you had seen through the clouds for just a moment, right? Because you would have never in a milion years survived the fall to the actual ground, not with the chute ripped and all tangled up. You only got away from it with bruised arms and legs because the actual fall was not that far.

An old tale for children that your grandmother used to tell you came to mind.. something about a king and princes and floating cities ... an ancient kingdom, huh?

But it just didnt quite come back to you, maybe it had been too long since you had heard it last or maybe your exhaustion just caught up with you as you felt all tention leave your body, sleepieness slowly pulling you under.

Until a sudden rustleing of leaves made you sit straight up, staring in the direction it came from. Nothing could have prepared you for what you saw before you. You had thought maybe a large animal or bird had made the noises, maybe even another human. But there, balancing on top of a crumling wall reaching out towards a large fruit on a high branch, uselessly swinging around its arm to close the last little gap, stood a being made of shiny metal. A little noise akin to a gasp escaped your lips as you sprung to your feet, immidiatly regretting it, the world spinning around you dizzingly for a moment. Now the being made of metal had noticed you too, turning their head towards you and staying still for a moment before opening their mouth and produching a kind of squeeling sound. The fruit hung forgotten as the big creature hastily turned around fully and lost their footing falling face first into the dust. It wasnt a far fall but you still cringed at the sound of rock scratching against metal and took a few stepps towards it, worried that it might have.. died? Or whatever the equivalent in this situation was. But it already jumped back to its feet and after just two strides closed the distance between the two of you, cooing at you while grabbing your shoulders, turning and staring at you like an interesting rock it just found. Big fingers traced a line over your face and grabbed your hands, inspecting them gently. Now looking up you were sure you heard about these kinds of beings before, ancient machines, used as workers and soldiers before the fall of that certain kingdom in a story turned fairytale... but this one looked different then what was pictured in the books, less spiky. It was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen. A dark bronze body radiating warmth, probably because this guy had heated up in the sun. Speaking of which its face had the shape of a stylized sun front row and back row of turning slowly, into different directions, retracting now and then, acompanied by a constant clicking noise.

"Wow" you breathed out as you stared at its gigantic hands working your fingers through them and taking a closer look at the intricate joints fitting perfectly, not even showing a seam, whoever had made this was a master of their craft. You looked up as a melodic, chime like cascade of sound, came from the metal being and rolled through the air. A thin tin layer had partially moved itself in front of the white shining glass eyes giving them a gentle, happy form. Whatever it had tried to express right now might have gone over your head but you were certain that it was in a good mood.

You grinned at it awkwardly, picking a little at the small bits of flaking yellow paint on its fingers. Its face really was the only place the paint was mostly intact, showing flowing details in orange and gold. You knew you were staring but so was the big guy in front of you, who now started to go over your arms and legs closely prodding at forming bruises and abrasions, almost as if evaluating them. You only stopped it when those large hands moved to hitch up your shirt, likely in search for more wounds. But you had non of it pushing the hands away from you and taking a step back. You werent going to let this big metal guy strip you down like that even if it.. he? only ment well.

His.. yea his, you decided, face turned on its head rays retracting slowly and shooting out again one after another around its face. Thinking. You guessed.

Chiming noises spilled out of the metal beings chest as he suddenly went and picked you up, arms outstretched as if he thought you would claw at him like a wild animal. The scratchmarks on his casing painted a wild picture and you couldnt help but crack a little smile at the thought of him picking up an dangerous predator like a little pet.

You werent in danger, somehow you knew.

[twilight-zoned-out]

Learning about the Doctor Who specials' expanded budget: oh no, what if they overuse CGI to look more 'professional' and high-budget?

The first scene of the Doctor Who Special:

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[geezmarty]

I'be been watching a danganronpa 2 LP as I work I'm on the final chapter and I'd like to state I'd die for them

[bluegiragi]

cockatrice (part 2)

early access + nsfw on patreon

--

werewolf lore drop ahead!!

although werewolves are classified as a shifter-type monster (same as Horangi or the cockatrice) they're actually unique in a hidden way. Horangi is a hybrid whose lineology originates from the first pureblood haetaes, which had zero human in them. In comparison, werewolves originated AS a human-wolf monster, which results in an interesting relationship between the human and shifted 'full-wolf' form.

While Horangi is the same in his human and haetae form, Soap juggles two souls in one body - one belonging to human side, and the other to his wolf. They are both still implicitly him - the souls run parallel with one another throughout his life - but being a werewolf is very much like maintaining a life-long partnership. Soap and his wolf are a great example of a success story, but some werewolves have difficult relationships with their wolf, resulting in only transforming during full moons when they have to.

In some ways, Soap is perfect in the military's eyes as he has a strong connection with his wolf, and happens to come from a long line of larger-than-average specimens (even though he doesn't care too much about his genealogy, preferring to call himself a mongrel breed). In other ways, he's also a nightmare, because his wolf exemplifies the worst in his rebellious streak, featuring recklessness, fickleness towards authority and an extremely low tolerance for boredom.

[bluerosefox]

Family Resemblance

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I had another 11pm brain worm.

Enjoy

-x-x-

Daniel Wayne, the younger toddler brother of Bruce Wayne and the son of Martha and Thomas Wayne had been kidnapped the night their parents were murdered.

Daniel had been snagged the moment their killer heard people headed to the alley and Bruce in his state of shock didn't realize it until it was far to late and could only scream in horror (from everything) as his baby brother is crying his name. (If you wanna make it even more heart wrenching, make it Danny's first time being able to say Bruce's name right and/or Bruce had said some mean things to Danny earlier after he accidentally broke something of Bruce's, something like 'I wish youd go away' or 'I never wanted a brother, you're such a bother!')

Bruce is being held by Alfred as some police officers are chasing down the Wayne's parents killer while some stay behind to see if they could do something.

Minutes turn to hours and as they wait, praying the police at least found Danny, Bruce is ridden with guilt. From his parents death to allowing his brother to be kidnapped.

Eventually the police return to give Alfred and Bruce the news. And it's not good.

The killer escaped and Danny was nowhere to be found.

And it would take many years before he would be found.

-x-x-

Bruce gets a call from Damian during school hours one day. When he answers he is greeted with Damian demanding him to get to the school and explain himself.

Confused Bruce asks what does he mean and Damian responds with

"The two new students in class today are the spitting images of you and I father! Either they are poorly created clones or you have more hidden blood children!"

-x-x-

Meanwhile the very students being discussed are calling up someone too

"Ellie? Dan? What's wrong? You better not have made too much chaos already, I just paid for the uniforms for that place."

"DAD! I THINK ANOTHER ONE OF THE FRUITLOOPS FAILED CLONES SOMEHOW SURVIVED!"

"What?"

[iwoulddieforienzo]

Personally I think percabeth is at its best when Grover is in it. I don’t necessarily mean in a polycule way I just think it’s great when he’s around

[jedi-starbird]

Obi-Wan: oh? who's this?

Cody, who's been carting around an orange cat he found sleeping in Obi-Wan’s discarded robe all day, and assumed that his general had been transformed due to standard Force Bullshit™️: ...no one. apparently.

[mohntilyet]

illario as the grandchild that is most like caterina is something i'm loving to chew on. the grandson that took her lessons to heart the most. kill anyone who sees your face and knows your name, "we are not revolutionaries", the first out of the two to prioritise the contract. power at any cost, and the only one to lean into the unnecessary abuse that their grandmother told them was tradition. why is anyone surprised he allied with the venatori? and then there's illario's considerable skill in infiltration and manipulating any mark, he has always had the charisma that lucanis lacked. illario isn't attached, he has/can/will use someone and immediately drop them; "that does free me from promises i don't intend to keep". he can lie about how much he cares so well that he fools a magister into believing he loves her. he kills zara without hesitation to cover his own tracks, meanwhile lucanis blindly promises a young girl in the middle of a siege that he will help her find her father. even the lessons about family stick with him, and in this entire messy power struggle, he never actually orders anyone to directly kill caterina or lucanis, not until he's backed into a corner.

and even after all that. despite even lucanis believing illario should be first talon, lucanis is still the better killer. illario is not strong enough to be the brutal assassin caterina needs him to be. so when lucanis seems to fill the role his mother left, grief and love for her dead heir apparent remains, and any of the other qualities caterina needs in her next talon doesn't matter. whatever his mother was, lucanis has to be. what illario does doesn't matter, because he will always be second best to caterina's memory of her favored daughter.

[aroaceleovaldez]

the dynamic of demigods thinking which other demigod is the most powerful is always amusing to me because. like, we know the big 3 kids are all the most powerful. That's just a fact of their universe. And then we know nearly every character views Percy as the strongest demigod, and most people are very rightfully intimidated by him.

and you look at the powers of the Big 3 kids and there's Percy, but then you realize Nico is just kind of objectively more powerful than him but simply chooses to hang out in Percy's shadow like he's Percy's scary dog privileges. Like, the two of them are pretty equally capable of causing multiple different apocalypses. Nico just also has like four different instakill powers and it's not like he doesn't use them. He very much uses them! Not infrequently, even! And they don't seem to take a significant amount of energy from him! And other demigods are pretty intimidated by both of them! But Nico makes a conscious point to keep his cards close to his chest and not let on exactly how dangerous and scary he can be if he wants to. People are already scared enough of him without knowing anything about him and he doesn't like that. Percy doesn't think about that nearly as much, and so usually just goes in guns blazing and that's part of why he's considered a wildcard. And then Nico himself puts Percy on a pedestal, so those who do know more about Nico's abilities then presume Nico knows something they don't about Percy that implies Percy is even stronger than him.

And even on a meta level Nico's narrative role requires him to be functionally more powerful than Percy, because he very often serves the purpose of getting Percy out of situations he can't handle on his own. That's just part of his function as a character! But also narratively he can't overshadow Percy so he just takes a backseat of his own accord and that's very amusing to me.

[tagidearte]

Cropped WIP. A well trained dog and his best friend, the hare playing rabbit. Sorry for quality, this is a picture taken of my screen.

[nyaaamato]

orpheus & eurydice

[flwrkid14]

Eternal Bonds: Tim and Danny’s Infinite Realms Marriage

In the Infinite Realms, marriage is an unparalleled commitment. Unlike the mortal world, where love can be fleeting and easily undone, marriage in the Realms is something far more sacred. It’s not just about vows or ceremonies—it’s about merging souls, creating a bond that not even the vast stretches of time can sever. The very idea of marriage in the Realms is rare, almost mythical, because it requires two beings to love each other so profoundly that they’re willing to bind their very existence to one another.

For the ghosts and entities that reside in this realm, eternity isn’t just a poetic idea—it’s a reality. Time is meaningless when you’re no longer alive, when your very essence is bound to the afterlife. And because of this, relationships are viewed through a different lens. There’s no such thing as divorce, no “time apart.” Once a couple is bound, their souls are intertwined forever. To dedicate your entire being—past, present, and future—to another means accepting that their joys, sorrows, triumphs, and failures will be yours too. It’s a partnership where breaking the bond is simply impossible.

It’s why marriage is such a rare occurrence in the Realms. The ghosts, who have already lived one life and often seen the frailty of mortal promises, don’t enter into this kind of bond lightly. It’s only for the strongest of loves, for the most steadfast of commitments. Because once you marry in the Infinite Realms, that bond holds through eternity itself.

And yet, despite the gravity of it all, Tim and Danny find themselves willing to make that very commitment. Tim, a mortal tied to a world where things end, where nothing lasts forever, steps into the unknown. His love for Danny is so deep, so unshakable, that he agrees to a traditional Infinite Realms marriage. He knows full well the weight of it—he’s not just vowing to love Danny in this life, but in every life after. In swearing to this bond, Tim is offering his entire being to Danny, for now and all of eternity.

For Danny, this choice means even more. As a halfa, he exists between two worlds, knowing both the mortality of the living and the permanence of the ghostly afterlife. His love for Tim is powerful enough that he’s willing to make this eternal commitment, knowing that there’s no one else in any world—mortal, ghostly, or beyond—he would rather be tied to. For Danny, the bond is as natural as breathing. It’s a connection that deepens their relationship in a way that transcends the limitations of their two worlds.

Their marriage isn’t just a declaration of love—it’s a merging of souls, a binding that makes them two parts of the same whole. It overwhelms them with the sense of safety and belonging that they’ve both craved in their lives. In each other, they find the kind of love that doesn’t just endure life’s difficulties but thrives beyond them. Their bond ties them together forever in a way that no one else could understand, but to Tim and Danny, it’s everything.

They are each other’s home. And in the Infinite Realms, there is no greater honor, no stronger connection, than to be bound by love for all of eternity.

[penguin-stars]

You know one of my favorite things about this novel?

Is that Cale (Well, Kim Rok Soo) actually acts his age (36)

I personally haven't read many Isekais aimed at male audiences, so I can't speak for those

I have, however read quite a bit of Otome Isekais

And one of the things that annoys me the most about the genre, is when the protagonist, usually an adult woman, gets reincarnated into a baby, a child or a teenager and you sometimes forget their actual age because some of the things they do, some of the decisions they make are /baffling/ when you remember they're a grown ass adult

But with Cale is quite the opposite, people around him are often left scratching their heads at some of his actions and level of maturity ("Aren't you supposed to be 18-20?")

Hell, one time he told Raon that he is "30 years older than him" only to remember mid-phrase that nope, he's actually supposed to be only 15 years older

-Spoilers for P1-

And it's also very funny when Alberu finds out that Cale is, in fact actually older than him, his reaction is pure gold because he's supposed to be the hyung around here you know?

[goldensunset]

i’ve been thinking about the pokémon memes where it’s like playing off of that one quote that’s like ‘truly strong trainers should try to win using their favorites’ and it’s like ‘ok well my favorite is [something blatantly overpowered]’ and it’s got me curious. how many people genuinely love pokémon that also happen to be really strong competitively?

so if you will. pick a favorite pokémon (for any reason! whether it’s cuteness or strength or nostalgia etc. no judgment) then go here https://www.smogon.com/dex/sv/pokemon/ and look it up

(you’ll see something that looks like this. see where it says tier and has some gibberish afterwards? don’t worry if you don’t know what that means but tell me what the letters/words are)

also if there are multiple forms and the distinction matters to you make sure you get the right one lol cuz the tiering can be different

edit: forgot to mention i mean specifically in SV! which is what comes up by default. rip every pokémon that either isn’t in SV (it’ll say ‘national dex’) or used to be better but has since fallen off relative to new pokémon

[bunnieswithknives]

I feel bad for neglecting Hazel so much, I do have many thoughts about her.. and also a mermaid au that im probably not going to do anything with